Conservatives Target Musk Tax Subsidies as ‘Low-hanging Fruit’

Posted by Dane County (WI) Gop1sc on June 02, 2017

Green energy CEO bailing on Trump advisory committee

BY: Susan Crabtree Washington Free Beacon June 2, 2017

Tesla CEO Elon Musk's decision to quit serving as a business adviser to President Trump because of Trump's exit from the Paris climate accord is spurring additional scrutiny of the billions of dollars in tax subsidies Tesla, SolarCity, and other Musk companies have received over the last decade.

The Heritage Foundation's Stephen Moore called the "green-energy" tax credits Musk and his companies have benefited from "low-hanging" fruit that could help Republicans offset plans to lower the corporate rate, estimating there could be $150 billion in savings over 10 years by ending them.

"We're scrounging for offsets so those credits and subsidies are the low-hanging fruit," he told the Washington Free Beacon Friday.

Moore said Trump's decision to leave the Paris Agreement is a sign of the changing times with Republicans in control of the White House and Congress, and that Musk is simply reacting to the less hospitable political environment.